


The Spice of Life

by Arya_Greenleaf, NOXOGOTH



Series: Fic/Art Collaborations [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Boxing & Fisticuffs, Drug Dealing, Established Relationship, Exhibitionism, Fist Fights, Illustrated, Inappropriate Use of the Force, M/M, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Recreational Drug Use, Rimming, Rough Kissing, Rough Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Switching
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-08-12 21:37:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7950055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Greenleaf/pseuds/Arya_Greenleaf, https://archiveofourown.org/users/NOXOGOTH/pseuds/NOXOGOTH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cunning, corrupt, and cold were all words used to describe Armitage Hux by his peers--legitimate and shadowy alike. Kylo Ren would have begged to differ. Cunning, surely. Corrupt, absolutely. Hux wasn't cold--that seemed to imply a lack of fervor that simply was not true. Ren would have offered any number of words in substitute--demanding, reckless, fiery, and impossible to resist.</p><p>Armitage Hux was not only a cog in the machine of the First Order. Hux was a man who would rule the galaxy by any means--sitting on a political throne or one built with lies, intimidation, and ill-gotten credits. Through his climb to General, Hux built an empire of his own and dragged Kylo Ren most willingly down a path of no return.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>Story by Arya_Greenleaf and Illustrations by NOXOGOTH</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Major

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this painting](http://avaahren.tumblr.com/post/149152840664/noxogoth-smut-break-before-i-get-to-work-on) by the lovely [noxogoth](http://noxogoth.tumblr.com) and subsequent conversations about space heists, danger, and spice. 
> 
> Go give noxo a follow if you're on tumblr. You can also find my Star Wars nonsense (and frequent fan-girling over noxo's art) [right here.](http://avaahren.tumblr.com)
> 
> Enjoy!

Hux put his hands on his hips and pushed them back. His spine popped and shifted, the pressure and tension built up there dissipating as he rolled his back concave and then convex again. His knuckles were raw; a dull throb that matched his heartbeat making his hands feel larger than they were; the thin skin irritated from scraping against his opponent’s jaw.

The humanoid currently being scraped off the floor and removed from the ring was covered in a fine network of microscales, effectively turning his epidermis into an organic sandpaper.

On some planets, his species was hunted almost explicitly for that purpose.

On this planet, he simply stood between Hux and one of the biggest hauls he’d ever attempted to make. An annoyance of irritated skin much more than any hunting trophy.

Hux turned away as one of the organizers of this little event climbed down into the ring to (rather inefficiently) mop up the small pool of dark green blood. He sauntered over to his own side of the ring where Ren was crouched down, balanced on the balls of his feet with his elbows braced against his knees. The crowd that had gathered for the spectacle had quieted some, murmuring in a low buzz amongst themselves about what they’d just seen and very likely trying to place new bets.

“You didn’t warn me about that one.”

“I didn’t think there was anything to warn about.” He reached out, taking Hux’s hands in his and rubbing his thumbs over Hux’s much-abused knuckles.

Hux drew a sharp breath in through his nose, whistling through thickly crusted blood from the first round of fighting, as soft blue light spilled from beneath Kylo’s fingers. He stepped closer, trying to shield the display from curious onlookers. “Ren,” he hissed. “Careful.”

Kylo grinned, the expression splitting his face in a dangerous glitter of white. He pressed a long, calloused finger against his lips, “Shh.”

Ren sat down on the edge of the ring—the pit, really, difficult to escape—and dangled his feet over the edge. He turned Hux around, pulling him back gently between his spread knees. Fingertips pressed hard into Hux’s shoulders, sliding over sweat-damp skin and twisting into knotted muscles in his shoulder blades. Heat radiated off of Ren’s own bare torso, soaking into Hux’s back. Thankfully, the flush of vigorous exertion concealed its effect.

Kylo leaned close, murmuring in low tones that ruffled the wet hair curled around the back of Hux’s ear. “Be careful. They don’t have any intention of letting me in. They’re going to make you go ‘til you can’t.”

“What do you mean? I wasn’t under the impression this was a fight to the death.” His last opponent had bled quite freely, but Hux was sure he’d live.

“They want a spectacle. They’ve got some local spice lord somewhere around. He’s heard some things. Wants to see you put in your place.”

“What _things_ has he heard?”

Ren’s lips brushed directly against the shell of his ear. Hux filled his lungs, his chest rising with it, and clenched his jaw. Ren’s whisper was hardly audible, “That you’re invincible.”

The next fighter hopped down into the ring—a lean Zabrak woman as bare-chested as Hux and corded with muscle. The jagged nub of horn over her left brow looked freshly raw, the tip very recently broken off.

“She’ll kill you if you give her the chance.”

“Kriffing hell, Ren, that’s no way to inspire confidence.”

“So win.”

“What incentive have I got?” Ren pulled back slightly, briefly halting the brutal massage of Hux’s shoulders and digging his thumbs in. Hux felt light-headed for a moment, a blur of sound and color and sensation washing any other thought out of his conscious mind—a tight grip on his wrists, in his hair, skin-on-skin, snarling and slapping teeth, dark hair and pale flesh and a shadow falling into the groove of a hip.

“Incentive.”

“Excellent.”

“Then make this one quick, Starkiller. I’m bored.” Hux snorted and Ren drew away, a foot brushing against his hip as Kylo hoisted himself back up outside the fighting pit.

Hux sauntered back to the middle of the ring, cocky and brazen with loose fists curled near the high taper of his waist. He nodded, acknowledging the Zabrak. She returned the nod curtly and assumed a fighting pose, bouncing fluidly from the knee, her shoulders dropped and relaxed.

Hux allowed himself a small smile, the organizer shouting something about his having won two-out-of-two and what the outcome of the third might be. He bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing—what would the Commandant think? Would he spare a thought for Major Armitage Hux, commissioned officer of one very patched-up Nebulon-K and arguable king of the First Order’s more illicit trade?

Major Hux, ruthlessly dirty bare-knuckled fighter?

Boxing at the Academy had been nothing like this.

He certainly hadn’t had some barvy mystic knight at his back—in all the most opportune ways—back then, even if he’d never fought fair.

The Zabrak threw the first punch, catching Hux squarely in the jaw and making him see stars. They traded blows—elbows and hands and feet, a well-timed shoulder to the gut that made Hux’s opponent stumble, jabbing fingers and scratching nails fell in equal measure—until the Zabrak gained the upper-hand.

She drove Hux back against the wall of the ring, crowding him with her limbs, her hot breath against his face and broken horn digging into his forehead.

“You can’t win.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Watch me.”

Hux twisted his body, somehow getting his shoulders under her arm to throw her off. She tripped backward and fell hard, her head slamming into the rough permacrete floor. Her eyes fluttered, dazed for just a moment and long enough for Hux to dive down and straddle her hips, his legs locked around her thighs. He pulled his fist back, ready to knock his opponent out and put an end to the spectacle.

The Zabrak recovered surprisingly quickly. She snarled and wrenched her hips to the side, unsteadying Hux just enough to flip his hold against him. Her legs free, her sweaty palm slapped down against Hux’s cheek, pressing the other against the permacrete and making his eyes water. Her knee planted in the small of his back, she gripped his hair and yanked him up at an angle the human spine wasn’t meant to bend and barred her free arm against his throat.

Hux’s legs were useless as he kicked, bare feet scraping against the floor and not finding purchase, body bent at too extreme an angle to gain purchase with his knees to buck back and throw her off.

The Zabrak laughed like an old man who’d wasted his life smoking cigarras and tightened the arm constricting Hux’s throat, totally unresponsive to his sharp nails scratching and pinching at her skin as he tried to pry the limb away.

“Enough!” He could hear Ren just above the high-pitched ring in his head. “I said, _enough!_ Call it now!”

Hux’s face grew hot, it was harder to move his feet at all; his fingers began to tingle.

“What do you say, everyone?” The organizer was standing just beyond Hux’s peripheral vision, what was left of it at least, as the world narrowed into a vignette. “Call it?” The room booed, loud and animalistic in its fury. “How about we let this _strapping_ lad into the ring then?”

Ren didn’t wait for the crowd’s response or the organizer’s approval.

He landed almost softly on the balls of his feet, bouncing and lifting his leg in a kick Hux was sure would break bone on contact. He caught the Zabrak in the shoulder, snapping his foot forward and knocking them both to the ground. Ren advanced, threading his long fingers between the horns on one side of the Zabrak’s head and wrenching it back.

“Get. _Off._ ”

She gasped, yanked back with Ren’s solid arm around her waist, releasing her hold on Hux in her surprise. Hux coughed and sucked in breath, his head throbbing with the sudden rush of circulation and the room spinning wildly around him.

“ _You_ get off!” The Zabrak jerked her head sharply out of Ren’s grip and butted back, her horns catching him on the chin. She sprang up, turning and immediately setting herself into a more stable stance. She attacked swiftly, flinging her fists out faster than Ren could stop them. He spun in a half-circle on his heel, his cheek split high over elegant boning.

Hux shouted, needlessly telegraphing as he launched himself up off the floor, legs wrapping around the Zabrak’s waist and his fingers hooking into the side of her mouth. Shrieking as she bit down, he drove an elbow into the vulnerable space between shoulder and collar.

The Zabrak grunted and tipped back, slamming Hux into the wall of the ring. “What are you? A girl-child? Who taught you to fight?”

She slammed backward again. Hux was sure he’d have a soft spot on the back of his skull when all was said and done. Dazed, he hung on, clawing at the Zabrak’s face and shoulders when he could find proper purchase. Ren hung back, seemingly uncertain as to whether intervening would result in further bodily harm where Hux was concerned.

Hux shouted, finding himself turning ass-over-head, his limbs wrenched from their hold around the hard-muscled body of his opponent.

“Stop this, now!” Ren was shouting at the organizer again, one eye on the tussle in the ring as he hugged the wall. The Zabrak wrestled Hux to the floor and settled her weight across his chest. The smack of Hux’s head against the permacrete punctuated Ren’s appeals.

Kylo turned, his face twisted with anger, his fingers twitching. “ _No,”_ Hux thought, trying to push the word out toward Ren. “ _We had a deal. No Force—we can’t show our hand._ _You—“_ Hux’s desperate thoughts shot out of his mind along with the stars moving across his field of vision.

With the weight of the Zabrak gone, Hux sucked in air and scrambled across the floor, trying to avoid the kicking of feet and flailing of fists as she and Kylo rolled. He braced himself back against the wall, diaphragm convulsing violently with the rush of breath, blood flowing hard through his head like a ship revving up for hyperspeed.

Kylo’s face was a mask of fury, his over-sized features making the expression more terrifying than it would have been on anyone else. The Zabrak held fast to hanks of Ren’s hair, chin tucked to her chest and horns jerking dangerously toward his face as they thrashed. He barked out a pained sound, hitting the ground and the Zabrak’s forehead at once, the broken horn slicing into his pale skin. She reared back and slammed down again. Ren bared his teeth, body tensing. The Zabrak stopped, her grip tightening and hands shaking. Her eyes turned wide as saucers as he snarled, hands locked over hers in his hair.

“Ren,” Hux croaked. “Ren _don’t._ ”

The organizer was shouting. The crowd was roaring and booing and calling for Ren to be pulled from the ring.

Everything was muted, as if listening to a holodrama through a closed viewport.

The Zabrak’s face blanched in horror, a shining drop of blood rolling down from her nose. It clung to her lip, growing fat and round before it fell and splattered against Kylo’s cheek.

Her grip loosened, her body swayed.

The Zabrak dropped, staring unseeingly at the ceiling beams when Ren pushed her away. He rose onto hands and knees, jaw still clenched as he got to his feet, hand held out toward Hux.

“We have to go.”

“How could you be so foolish?”

“She was going to kill you.”

All sound and movement had ceased, the crowd around them frozen.

“We have to go now.”

“How? We’re trapped in a kriffing pit like a couple of fighting cocks!” The crowd began to shift, slowly, their shouting starting up like a low whine.

“We’ll figure it out, _c’mon Hux_.”

“They’ll come after us.”

“They can’t. She was—she was his muscle. They’ve got no Heavy now—they can’t—they won’t.”

“How do you know?” Hux demanded, eyes darting nervously around at the steadily reanimating mob. “You know these people just as well as I do—not at all!”

“I can read minds, you bantha-brained ass! We have to go! Now! Trust me!”

Hux chose to ignore the unsure waver in Ren’s voice and allowed Kylo to yank him toward the wall, to help him hoist himself up over the edge. They pushed through the crowd, hands grasped tightly, until the shouting and jostling resumed with no warning. Ren plowed ahead, Hux’s arm twisting at a painfully awkward angle as he did. The crowd around them reacted with fear and anger in turn, grabbing and scratching and panicking at the battered pair that had seemingly suddenly appeared in their midst.

They stumbled out into an empty service corridor, the door blown from its hinges with a flick of Ren’s wrist. He continued to tug Hux along, “Let’s _go_!” The slap of their bare feet against permacrete and durasteel echoed in the hall.

Futile thoughts, muddled with pain and panic, flitted back and forth in Hux’s mind. They pinged off of the walls of his skull like classified datachips in a strongbox—the rest of his clothes, his weapon, the pile of credits he’d put down, the speeder parked somewhere in the bowels of the building, his Order credentials—all gone, all useless in their mad dash for escape.

“There!” A muscle-bound Rodian stepped into the hall, blaster drawn, followed close behind by a collection of humanoids that didn’t look the slightest bit amused at the evening’s developments. “Don’t let them leave!”

Adrenaline fueled Hux’s sprint, pushing him ahead of Ren, their fingers twisting as they struggled to keep hold of each other. Hux cursed his own willingness to get involved in this mess, for allowing his ambition and vanity get the better of him.

It should have been an easy transaction. They should have been well on their way back to the Nebulon-K Hux called home, a crate of high-quality Ryll stashed in the cargo hold.

_Put your credits where your mouth is, Major._

When Ren had been the voice of reason, Hux should have known the whole thing would go sour.

Hux flinched and ducked at the sound of blaster-fire, reaching uselessly for his own to return fire. Ren whipped around, fingertips grazing Hux’s face as he turned into an awkward dancer’s hold, their clasped hands in front of him and his back pressed to Hux’s chest. With his hand out-stretched, the bolts froze, hovering in the air mere feet away. The Rodian and his humanoid gang stopped, shocked at the display.

“You’re going to run.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“I have to let it go. You have to run.”

“And what will you do? Hmm?”

“Why can’t you pfassking follow direction, just once, and kriffing run when I tell you?”

“I’m not leaving without you, you kriffing backwater Azkanc!”

Ren clenched his jaw, nostrils flaring, and wrenched his hand from Hux’s grip. “Go, now. I’ll be right behind you.”

“But—“

“Go!”

Hux hesitated before taking off, heading toward the distinct smell of garbage and hoping it would lead him to the back door of the building. Heat bloomed against his bare back and warmed the floor.

“Don’t look back!” Ren grabbed his wrist as he came running along, urging him to move faster along the twisting hall until they hit a door propped open and the cool air and moonlight washed over them.

They didn’t stop, feet splashing through putrid puddles of rainwater in the uneven pavement framed with the refuse of the surrounding buildings.

Hux finally did look back after they’d run several blocks, his ribs aching and his feet throbbing. He hugged himself, bending forward and trying to catch his breath. The warehouse they’d come from glowed in the night, the orange blaze of the fire sparkling against the dark backdrop of the sky.

Hux was shocked when his back hit the wall behind him. He looked up into Ren’s face, his chin trembling with barely contained anger. “I told you this would end badly! I told you!” Ren shoved him again. “You never listen!”

      

“You wanted this haul just as much as I did! Don’t pretend you weren’t ready to do what you had to!”

“You think I care about any of this? _Kriff_ , Hux, are you really that blind?” He shoved Hux again. “You can’t get your head out of your perfect ass for two standard minutes? Do you think I care about the spice? The credits?” He stepped up close, his nose brushing Hux’s and his breath humid on Hux’s skin. “I am a Knight of Ren, apprentice to the Supreme Leader. I don’t care about any of it. I don’t need any of it.” His eyes searched Hux’s face, wild and dilated with the darkness around them and the bubbling fury in him. “Just you.”

Ren surged forward, trapping Hux bodily against the wall and smashing their mouths together in a hot mess of teeth and saliva.

This was part of the thrill.

The danger, the desperation, the secrecy of it all.

The terrifying gleam in Ren’s eyes when a haul went wrong or Hux willfully did something reckless as if Hux hadn’t seen Ren act out like some untamed thing and risk life and limb in the name of Snoke’s bidding.

“ _Fuck, Hux_.” The Major trembled as spittle flew, dotting his cheek and chin, and Kylo ground their hips together. He pressed his thumbs into the soft underside of Hux’s chin, forcing his head back to suck sharp bruises against his throat.

Hux squirmed, unwilling to be entirely manhandled, pushing a stunned Ren away. They stared, chests heaving and fists clenched.

Hux dropped to his knees, fingers fumbling with the tied front of Ren’s leggings. Kylo shivered, cool air against bared flesh, and grasped Hux’s wrists roughly, yanking them above his head and making his shoulder strain painfully.

Hux leaned forward, Ren’s cock hot against his cheek as he clumsily attempted to draw it between his lips, mouthing along the heavy length of it and sucking hard on the tip, lips seated against the thin skin covering his crown.

Hux moaned around the weight of the cock on his tongue, getting harder himself as he worked to bring Ren to attention. Training his jaw into relaxation, he eased himself forward.

Ren’s thighs tensed, the muscles of his taut abdomen jumping as Hux coughed, lips and chin shining with saliva. He paused, balling his hands into fists and fighting the urge to sneeze as dark hair tickled his nose, and swallowed thickly around Ren’s cock.

“ _Fuck_.”

Hux hazarded a look up, nearly swooning at the orangey glow of the fire highlighting the side of Ren’s face. Faint shouting and the sounds of emergency crafts filtered along the alley toward them.

Ren drew his hips back slowly and drove them forward again and again until Hux pulled away, gasping for breath and cheeks glowing red with effort.

“H-Hux,” Ren breathed. Sweat glittered like so many tiny jewels against his torso, collecting in the hollow of his throat and the valleys of his abdomen. Hux’s fingers tingled and throbbed, feeling beginning to fade from the tips held so high above his head. “I—you—“

“In,” he panted. “In me—in my—” His heart thundered in his ears for a much different reason than before. He craned his neck forward again, catching the tip of Kylo’s cock and rolling the edge of the foreskin hard between his lips. Ren made a strangled sound and shifted haltingly forward, Hux’s shoulder blades pressed back into the cool permacrete wall behind him.

Ren’s hips moved in an uneven, stuttering motion as Hux’s sucked, laving the cock in his mouth with his tongue and hollowing his cheeks around it until Ren whined above him and spilled.

Kylo leaned forward, forehead pressed to the wall, a hot cheek against Hux’s increasingly cold hand. Hux pulled back awkwardly, tongue running over one edge of his mouth to catch the mess. He rested his cheek against Ren’s hard thigh, the tight cord of muscle shifting against his cheek under supple leather.

“Fuck,” Hux muttered.

Ren chuckled above him. “We have to get out of here—you’ll get court marshalled.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [You can find the entire comic right here on tumblr. Give it a reblog while you're at it!](http://avaahren.tumblr.com/post/150848659559/onheil-ferguson-noxogoth-i-wanted-to-post)


	2. Colonel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See endnotes for slightly spoilery warning about recreational drug use within the text.

 

“Colonel Hux.”

Ren’s voice was smooth and unfeeling through the modulator, his hands folded behind his back as he stared out into the darkness beyond the viewport. He stood alone in the war-room, an ominous silhouette against the stars.

Several standard weeks ago, Hux had been bent over the sleek conference table just behind where Ren stood now having a heated conversation via holo with the commander of another ship.

For anyone who asked, the Brigadier General who technically commanded the _Auriga_ and the five others in their small fleet trusted his Colonel implicitly to deal with any matters concerning the Maxima-A’s movements.

For anyone who knew better, Hux kept the man in enough Glitteryll to make even a Sando aqua monster docile and was free to do as he pleased.

What pleased Hux, was running the heavy cruiser.

The conversation had had turned into an argument quite quickly. The offending commander had demanded to be patched into the Brigadier’s frequency, determined that he wouldn’t deal with an underling. Hux had smacked his palms against the tabletop in frustration, the _thwack_ of leather against the enameled durasteel was always satisfying.

Almost as satisfying as Ren on his knees behind Hux, just out of frame.

Hux had squared his jaw and flared his nostrils, the small image of himself in the bottom corner of the holoscreen looking sufficiently perturbed when in reality he was anything but.

“You will deal with me or nobody at all. So I suggest you make your demands so that I may deny them and we can move on.”

“I _never_ in my entire career—”

“—have been spoken to with such disrespect by a subordinate!” Hux mocked the commander’s haughty tone. “Let me ask you, how did you get to command that rust bucket? I suspect it was something like sheer dumb luck.” Hux’s eyes fluttered closed, he took a steadying breath. Ren’s hot mouth sucked hard, teeth grazing against the delicate fold of skin at the juncture between thigh and ass. “I, on the other hand, know how to play the game. Part of that game is knowing when to back down. You, _sir_ , need to learn how that’s done. You will _not_ be leading the blitz on the Jakku system—the _Auriga_ will be. Our commander outranks you both literally as well as in practical battle experience.”

“ _You_ do not, Colonel.”

Hux took a sharp breath in and leaned closer to the video capture, his face filling the little holowindow on his end in a sufficiently intimidating manner. The movement also had the advantage of spreading himself further to Ren’s wicked tongue.

 

“What I lack in the chronological sense I more than make up for in skill and _common_  sense. Something you clearly don’t possess. Per… _the commander’s orders_ … you will bring up the rear. Or shall I ask the Ren to persuade you?”

Hux’s influence within the circle of mystic knights was a curious thing to the others along the chain of command, but not curious enough that they’d tempted fate thus far.

Hux pressed his lips into a thin line, holding in the breathy moan that he so wanted to let out. A drop of sweat rolled down his back beneath his uniform jacket.

He shook with relief when the holocall was finally over, laying his cheek against the cool surface of the table. Ren pressed his face harder into the cleft of his ass, making obscenely wet sounds as saliva and sweat dripped down the backs of Hux’s thighs. Gloved fingertips gripped his hips, digging into the hollows of his pelvis.

“Ky-y- _lo.”_ Hux craned his neck, struggling to see him around the curve of his hip or over his shoulder. Ren pulled back, breathing heavy, mouth and chin shining. His eyes were wide and eager, the intensity of them softened by the Ryll that hadn’t made its way to the energy spider farm.

Hux approached him now, stopping to lean back against the edge of that table and folding his arms.

“Kylo.”

“This can’t continue.”

“What?”

“Us.” Hux scoffed. “The Supreme Leader is not pleased.”

“You assured me he knew nothing about us—or that it was too insignificant a part of his larger plans to care.”

“He’s noticed… I’ve been distracted. He’s displeased.” Ren turned neatly on his heel. “He senses a disturbance in—in me. I can feel it as well and it must not be allowed to stand.”

“So you’re going to leave me high and dry for Jakku?” The mask was impassive. It was impossible to tell what was moving through Ren’s expression beneath it, mercurial as he was wont to be. “You can’t do that to me.”

“I’m not doing anything to you, Colonel. I am correcting _my_ path. I should never have strayed in the first place.”

Hux opened his mouth, huffing, and raised an eyebrow. “So I’m just a deviance? _We’re_ just that? A foot off the edge of the road to infinite Dark power?”

“Hux—”

“Don’t _Hux_ me. You knew exactly what you were getting into—from the first night. From the first cheap cigarra.” Hux pushed himself up off the table and stepped close, his nose nearly brushing against the mask. “From the first time I let you put your cock in me.”

A tense moment passed between them, Hux’s gaze burning through the visor, until Ren reached up and unlatched the mask. He leaned back to lift it off of his head, not breaking the unwavering eye contact for more than a moment. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in several cycles—at least as long as the time since Hux had last seen him onboard.

“One last time.”

Hux’s lips curled into a tight smile.

Their pretense was to lead a ground assault on Jakku proper. Hux intended to leave the responsibility to the Stormtrooper Captain. He’d proven himself more than competent in recent movements and Hux had other matters to attend to.

“I hope that fat ponce gets blown out of the Force-forsaken sky.”

Ren snorted and pulled his hood closer around his bare face, the sand kicking up around them in the violent wind. The scarf around Hux’s head and shoulders nearly blew completely away. Ren snatched it from the air and waited with an amused expression while Hux readjusted his goggles.

“We wouldn’t be doing this in the middle of a damned storm if he’d just cooperated. There was plenty of evidence to suggest the Resistance was in the system—they’re searching for something, isn’t that what the intel we intercepted said? Searching for something. Best take care of them before they find it—before the atmosphere of this sorry rock is completely made up of pfassking _grit_. Weeks we’ve lost. Weeks! It’s not even worth the expenditure on the chance.”

Ren chuckled, ducking left and right to ensure they hadn’t drawn unwanted attention before opening the door to the garage they’d approached. The speeder they’d use to travel to the main outpost was waiting for them just as promised, untouched by any of the scavengers in this far-flung community around a rusted out Star Destroyer.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.” He put a hand on the vehicle, almost gently. “I’m going to miss this.”

Hux tilted his chin haughtily skyward and brushed sand from his goggles. He arranged the scarf over his mouth and nose, winding it around his head and shoulders. “Let’s get this over with. I don’t want to have to be in Unkar Plutt’s despicable presence any longer than is absolutely necessary. Then you can be on your way back to whatever rock you twiddle your thumbs on when you’re not wreaking havoc in the galaxy.” He pulled himself up onto the speeder, settling purposefully in the front most seat, adjusting his satchel strap across his chest, and flicking switches to coax the dust-covered vehicle to life.

Kylo put a foot on the sideboard and swung his leg over the speeder. He wrapped his arms around Hux’s waist, getting an annoyed huff in return before Hux jammed his foot down on the accelerator and tore out of the garage, kicking up more sand than the storm and leaving a trail of surprised and swearing locals in their wake.

Niima Outpost came into view with a parting of the swirling clouds of stinging grit. “Zuvio’s meant to be off somewhere robbing some poor sap. We’ll have plenty of time for _negotiations_ with Plutt. Is that something you can handle or will it bring you further from your sacred path?” Hux’s voice was muffled beneath the scarf.

“Do not mock me, Hux.”

“I can’t help it.” He turned abruptly, stopping just beyond the first of the scavengers’ stalls outside the concession stand that Plutt lorded over. “You’re attractive when you pout.” Hux grinned wickedly beneath his scarf and strode purposefully through the organized chaos around them.

Plutt lumbered out from his booth to greet them, an overly eager look on his face as he held out a sweaty hand. He flinched, scavengers in their stalls startling and dropping things as some craft or another fell through the atmosphere overhead and exploded. “Heh, should I be worried, gentlemen? Or is it just another opportunity for this _fine_ community to profit?”

“I’d prefer to skip the small-talk, Unkar.”

The fleshy folds of Plutt’s body wobbled as he huffed. “Fine then, Colonel. Come inside. We’re due for another storm within the hour.”

They settled inside Plutt’s shack. The place reeked of sweat, spoiled rations, and mechanical oil. Hux finally removed his protective coverings, assured that hard as the wind might whip, they were safe from the biting grit in the air inside. Ren sat away from the small table Plutt gestured to, perching himself elegantly on the edge of a crate and lowering his hood. Hux waved off offers of food, genuinely fearing whatever might be placed in front of him, in spite of the subtle grumbling of his stomach.

“Water then, I’m sure the two of you are parched. Jakku is not a forgiving place for travelers.” His eyes slid from Hux to Ren, who nodded. Plutt leaned back in his chair and banged on a wall, shouting something through it in a guttural language Hux didn’t understand.

Hux thanked the small, skittish looking creature that brought them a pitcher. The outside of the vessel dripped with condensation, the air around it tangibly cooler. He peered over the rim to see a considerable amount of chipped ice sloshing around inside. Handing a cup to Ren, who drank truly as if he’d travelled for days in the desert, Hux turned back to Plutt.

“What have you got for me?”

“Good stuff, good stuff.”

“That’s what you told me last time. Those barrels of Slick you sold me weren’t much more than cooking oil.”

Plutt made an outraged face. “You sampled it yourself! You and your… your…” He glanced nervously in Ren’s direction. “Your quiet friend. Say, do you ever talk? Or has Huxy here really cut out your tongue? That’s what the Bothan says. He’s cut it out so he can stick his little pink thing further down your nice white throat! Heh!”

There was a change in the air, a shift in charge. The sweat-damp hairs on Hux’s arms stood up. The junk crammed in every nook and cranny rattled ominously. Ren made a horrifying face and stuck out his tongue.

Hux curled his lip in derision as he watched Plutt. “Are you finished?”

Plutt nodded.

“Good.” Hux straightened in his seat and placed his hands primly on the table in front of him. “We may have sampled something good, but whatever that was, certainly was not in the barrels you sent us off with.” Plutt grimaced. “I won’t tolerate such irresponsible business again. You’re lucky my buyer was a complete imbecile.” Hux thought back to the Senator on Hosnian Prime who’d swallowed a tablespoon of the counterfeit Slick and immediately fell into hysterics. “If you cost me further patrons with your selfishness it will cost you your life.”

“I—“

“What are you selling, Blobfish? I’ve got an attack to get back to leading, in case you haven’t noticed the Resistance crafts exploding in your sky.”

Plutt considered it a moment while Hux sipped his slurry of ice water, relishing in the fresh coolness of it—so unlike the reclaimed water aboard the ships he’d called home for so long. Hux drew in a deep breath, filling his belly with it as vague impressions of a large tub filled with the stuff flitted across his mind like a radiation-damaged holo—big hands gliding over his chest and thighs in the chilly bath. Hux cleared his throat. Ren shifted. The daydream abruptly ended and his mind went dark.

“Cigarillos, good ones. Very good ones. Very unique blend. Goes well with Survapierre.”

“And what makes this such a unique blend, hmm? If you’ve smoked one you’ve smoked them all.”

“Rashallo as a base, some Carababba for flavor—Armudu spice and Savorium for bite.”

Hux was mildly scandalized. “That’s a heart attack in a rolling paper.”

Plutt laughed, a phlegmy sound from deep in his chest. “Aye! But it’s a good way to go!”

“Let’s see this product then, Unkar. You’re wasting our time.”

“Ah! He speaks!”

Ren rolled his eyes and pulled a leg up, bending it over the opposite knee and playing idly with a frayed seam on his boot. “Unless of course, you’re stalling for time. Are you expecting any more visitors?” Ren looked at him in a serious, searching way that Hux had come to know meant he was carefully rifling through Plutt’s mind, exhibiting some caution as he had no idea if the man—if the Blobfish could be called that—had ever been subjected to a Force-user’s scrutiny before.

Plutt took a deep breath, eyes darting from Ren to Hux and back again. Hux brushed dust from the front of himself and took a long drink from his cup before pausing to re-fill it. “Consider your answer. Whether or not we leave you with all your limbs may depend on it.” It was a scare tactic and nothing more. What good was Plutt to Hux if he couldn’t continue operating as he was? So much of the work at Niima—stars, on Jakku—depended on physical capability. “Or maybe we’ll take your tongue instead—you seem so fond of the concept of fitting cocks comfortably down throats.”

Plutt swallowed and banged on the nearest wall again, shouted something else in that same language that Hux couldn’t begin to translate. There was a clatter somewhere deeper inside the concession stand and a short, stout creature with rusty orange skin appeared. It was yanking a heavy, twisted rope with considerable effort, something scraping along the floor as it did. Finally, the crate that the rope--a handle as it turned out--was attached to came into view. It had markings from customs offices in both Galactic Standard and several other system-specific languages stamped, scribbled, and branded over the lid and sides.

Hux nearly felt bad for the creature as it continued to drag the crate. Its skin was wrinkled, giving it an ancient look with folds of antique flimsi-quality skin sagging around tinted goggles. Finally, it parked the crate at the side of the table between Hux and Plutt’s knees. It babbled something at him and jabbed an angry finger at the flabby skin of Plutt’s bicep, gesturing to himself and then to Hux and Ren.

_“He’s annoyed.”_

_“Clearly.”_

_“Plutt’s not being entirely truthful. About what I’m not sure. He’s quite guarded. Something is coming.”_

_“Another one of you astral sorcerers in our midst, then?”_

_“Not that I can sense—not overwhelmingly so.”_

_“But you sense something.”_

_“Yes.”_

The harassed creature jammed a pry-bar under the edge of the crate’s lid and proceeded to apply the force of his full weight against it by bouncing his hind-end on it like a child on a see-saw. With a harrumph of displeasure and the squeal of nails popping through wood, the lid sprang open and the creature doing the work flopped onto the floor. He tossed the pry-bar toward the corner with a clatter and bustled out of the room.

Subtle fragrance filled the air—woodsy dried tabac, the sharpness of spice, the heady aroma of some other added herbage—Plutt hadn’t been lying about his product at the very least.

Hux leaned down and plucked a precisely rolled cigarillo. The rolling paper was fine and smooth, the thing was weighty for its size. He waved it under his nose, satisfied with the scent up close. Perched between two fingers, Hux leaned to the side, holding it out for Ren’s inspection. Plutt dug in a deep pocket on his trousers and produced a lighter, sliding it across the table.

“No.” Hux leaned forward, peering into the crate once more. “I don’t trust you.”

“What? It’s good! You see and smell for yourself!”

Hux reached deep into the crate, selecting a cigarillo from the middle of the lot. He knew all the tricks—hide lower quality product in the midst of some that was better, hope that the buyer was too green or too far gone to notice, pull a profit. He considered the cigarillo, the scent and weight much the same as the one he’d already passed to Ren. “You try it.”

“Me? I can’t do that. I’ve got a commissary to run! I can’t be wasted!”

Hux raised a brow and persisted in holding the cigarillo out to Plutt. “And I’ve got a war to fight—one that you’re keeping me from at the moment.” As if on cue, another explosion overhead rattled the glorified shack they were sitting in. “I’m sure your funny little assistant can run the place while you languish.” Hux raised a brow in a cruel expression. “Perhaps those poor wretches out there will actually get what their offerings are worth for a change.”

Ren stifled a nearly girlish giggle, evidently amused.

Plutt hesitated before plucking the cigarillo from Hux’s fingers and lighting it, taking a deep drag and blowing out smoke through his nostrils. He looked positively beastly.

Hux smiled and crossed his legs primly and drummed his fingers against his chin, eyes glittering. “You enjoy that, Unkar. We’ll count up the lot and decide on a price, finish the rest of this terribly refreshing water, and then be on our way. If that thing doesn’t kill you before we leave, perhaps I’ll even leave you a few as a bonus.”

Hux pushed his chair away from the table and slipped the strap of his satchel over his head to set it down on the floor. Ren slinked over, a shadow that Plutt watched with cautious interest, and knelt beside the crate. Sitting back on his haunches, he rifled through the satchel looking for a measuring tool. Taking a random handful of cigarillos, he gauged their weight in his palm and slipped several into the rings of his tool to measure their girth. Each sample finished was passed off to Hux to count and stack into saleable groups and seal up in waxed flimsiplast envelopes. As Ren made room in the crate with each successive handful, Hux arranged the envelopes inside.

Hux could never quite gauge how any of the illicit delicacies they dealt in effected Ren until it was plain on his face in the openness of his eyes and the flush on his cheeks. Though he could never pretend to understand the finer details of just how the Force worked, he was almost certain that it was the reason Ren could hold his drug so well. Hux, on the other hand, often found himself feeling it keenly and quickly if the product was of particular quality, just as he was now. The truth of Plutt's claims about what he was offering evident in the indirect intoxication Hux was experiencing.

The sharp, floral smoke began to make Hux’s head swim. He counted and recounted each handful that Ren passed him, his focus growing soft and fuzzy. He dropped an envelope into the crate and sat back heavily in his seat, hand fumbling just a bit for the perspiring cup of water on the table. Plutt’s attention seemed to be entirely elsewhere, the cigarillo balanced between his thin lips.

“Kylo,” Hux said softly. Ren continued his work. “Kylo.” Had he even spoken aloud? Hux nudged Ren’s knee with the toe of his boot, he finally looked up. “Kylo.”

Ren’s brows raised toward his hairline, shifting the constellation of beauty spots on his face.

Hux opened his mouth to speak and found his tongue too heavy for the effort. Instead he thought, purposefully and in Ren’s general direction, “ _Please, don’t leave me.”_

Ren closed his eyes, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. He took a deep breath and continued his work. Several silent minutes later, Hux placed the last envelope back into the crate. The curious little assistant reappeared un-called for, waving his hands to rid his path of smoke, and brandishing a hammer. He muttered something, gesturing to the crate and the lid. Taking the instruction for what it was, Ren put the lid back in place and held it still while he hammered it closed once more.

Plutt was in a pleasant sort of daze, aware but compliant. Ren spoke softly, “He’s looking for ten thousand. Give him no more than eight, you’ll never cut a profit if you give him more.”

Hux nodded and took up his satchel. He clicked his fingers in Plutt’s direction. “Hey! Blobfish!”

“Mm?”

“Enjoyed your cig?”

“Very much, Huxy.”

“Call me that again and I’ll blast you into the Endor system.”

“Mm.”

“We’ll give you six for the lot.”

“Ten!”

“Seven and a half.”

Ren replaced his hood and bent down to heft the crate up, easily bracing it against his shoulder. He pursed his lips in a serious manner and glared at Plutt.

“Seven and a half,” Plutt conceded.

“Excellent.” Hux took a handful of credit chips from his satchel and counted them out onto the table. “There you are.” He put the remainder safely away and enrobed himself in scarf and goggles once more. Next time, Hux thought, they should use this tactic straight away—Plutt was so much more agreeable in this state.

If there was a next time.

Ren was securing their crate on the back of the speeder when the trouble began.

“I can’t believe he smoked the entire thing.” Hux was standing with his arms folded, dangling fingers idly playing with the grip of the blaster on his hip. “I actually did think that thing would make his damned heart explode.” He was still feeling the contact high, had convinced himself that it had been the poor ventilation in the commissary and his close proximity to the strong smoke Plutt had been blowing out rather than any weakness in his own constitution. Something occurred to him as Ren shifted his saber to a more comfortable position for riding the speeder. “Did you do that? Make him smoke it?”

Ren shrugged. “He’s easier to tolerate when he’s quiet. I knew it wouldn’t hurt him. He's fat enough.”

Hux nodded and grimaced beneath the shield of his scarf, the strong breeze whipping through the outpost pelting him with the fine-ground sand beneath his feet.

“No!” There was a clatter of scavenged bits and tools tumbling to the plank floor of the nearest stall. “It’s _mine_! I found it! You can’t have it! _You can’t_!”

The pair of them ignored the commotion. The faster they could get back to the transport and stash their crate out of sight, the better. Hux pretended at being untouchable but he knew all too well the consequences he would face if the wrong superior stumbled upon their game.

“Dammit,” Ren swore softly, a string of expletives spinning through the air.

“What’s the matter?”

“Starter’s jammed.”

“Get out of the way, then, let me fix it.”

Ren put out a hand, stopping him with the startling breadth of it against Hux’s chest. “I can do it.”

Ren opened his mouth to speak again, his face shadowed and menacing under his hood even paired with desert-weight clothes rather than his robes, and was interrupted by further commotion from the stall. There was a screech and a clash and a smallish being came bolting toward them, apparently unaware of the obstruction in its path. It ran headlong into Hux, nearly knocking him down with the surprising force of the impact, clutching some mechanical component to its chest, wires flopping over a scrawny arm.

“Oh!” The being—a girl—looked up at Hux and hugged her goods tighter. “Please! Please don’t let him take it! Unkar will give me so many rations if I can get it clean!” She gasped when Ren grabbed her bicep, his fingers easily circling it. “Oh!”

Ren guided her purposefully back away from Hux. He glared in the direction she’d come from and flicked his hand dramatically. The sun-burned person she’d been arguing with shouted as crates of material crashed down around him in the stall. Ren cast his gaze down at the girl, his brow coming together in something resembling confusion. “Run along. Plutt’s indisposed.”

Apprehension, but not quite fear, flitted across the girl’s features and she wrenched her arm from his grasp. Still clutching her mechanical-something, she bolted down the row of stalls, calling out to someone in harsh syllables of non-standard.

“We have to go.”

“I’m well aware—if you’ll let me fix the starter—“

“No, it’s not—“

“There! You, there!”

“Kriff it all, Ren. You _had_ to—“

“You! Armitage Hux! You can’t hide! I don’t need to see your face to know it’s you! No one else would be with that _hound_.”

“Who the pfassking ten hells are you?”

In lieu of an answer, the handful of what were clearly some kind of mercenaries advanced upon them through the maze of stalls beyond the commissary. “My employer wants an audience with you—preferably after I’ve relieved your shoulders of that pretty red head.”

“Excuse me?” The dust in the air swirled more dramatically, charged. Ren clenched his hands into fists. Hux laid his hand against his blaster. “That’s a bit uncalled for.”

“What you did was uncalled for as well. You’ll be paid in kind.”

The leader of the crew, who’d been speaking, stepped up to the edge of the destroyed stall and clucked his tongue. Looking up, Hux could see his face more clearly now that he was closer, under the forgiving shadow of the roof of the stall—it was pocked and twisted with scars, a burn. The hand resting on his belt, blaster easily accessed, was scarred as well.

Ren seemed suddenly disinterested, busying himself with trying to unstick the starter, the small gear grinding against the grit within.

“You killed my employer’s daughter, so I’m meant to kill you.”

“I did nothing of the sort.”

It had been ages since he’d dealt with a difficult client and he’d certainly never had to resort to anything so dramatic, as much as he peacocked, and he found himself to be a mostly singular entity within the Order itself—competition was nearly nonexistent and practically cooperative. Hux couldn't even remember a reason he'd ever come close to entertaining the idea of killing someone for the sake of his business.

“Lies!”

“No,” Ren stepped in front of Hux. “He didn’t—I did.”

“Well then, we’ll just bring back both of your heads. Two birds, one stone.”

“Kylo, you—“ Realization dawned on Hux so suddenly it made his stomach turn. Ren filled his head with the image of a Zabrak woman with a broken horn, the sounds of bone crunching and feet slapping against the floor, the romantic glow of fire against bare shoulders and chests.

She hadn’t just been the muscle.

But it had been so long ago! How had they even known Hux would be—

“Get on the speeder.”

Hux didn’t need to be told twice. He launched himself upward on the sideboard, swinging his leg over and smashing switches and buttons in the starting sequence Ren had already begun to key in.

“Go!”

Ren gripped Hux’s shoulder and one of the speeder’s handles tightly, balanced on the sideboard like some kind of novelty trick-rider. Hux peeled away from the outpost, the kickback from the speeder’s engines throwing up a violent cloud of sand and exhaust and drawing out squawks of protest from those at the stalls.

Hux pushed the speeder as hard as it would go, the gauges swinging wildly and the engine too quickly growing hot between his legs. He ducked and swerved as blaster bolts began to rain down on them, the sound of additional speeders fast approaching. “They’re shooting at us!”

Ren’s fingers dug into his shoulder, his other hand jerked the controls, a plasma bolt striking the sand where their path had just been. “I can see that!”

“So, what the kriffing hell are you going to do about it?”

Ren harrumphed in irritation and shifted his grip, his precarious balance on the sideboard making the whole speeder quiver and tilt. His hand shot out toward their pursuers, the air rippled in a disquieting way in the opposite direction of the current they were creating with their vehicle. Sand exploded in their wake, a wall of the stuff shooting up and falling down again.

The speeders kept approaching, baster bolts cutting through the veil of grit.

“That’s not helping!”

“I’m _trying_!”

“Do something!”

Ren grabbed the blaster from Hux’s hip, nearly ripping the holster off of his belt. “I can’t concentrate like this!”

“Like what?” Hux’s fingers tingled, nerves pinched where Ren was holding on to him—he didn’t dare try to shrug him away. Hux craned his neck to look at Ren, the hood blown back away from his face and billowing around his shoulders, his eyes wide and his expression too soft.

 _Fuck_.

Ren unleashed several bolts in sequence, hitting the ground more often than not as they bounced up over wind-carved dunes.

“Still not helping!”

“Will you _shut up_ and just drive?”

Ren tensed, time seemed to slow. He took a deep breath and put steady pressure on the trigger, exhaling as he depressed it fully. The bolt hit the engine of the nearest speeder, sending it topping end over end and forcing the others to swerve wildly to avoid it.

Hux whooped in relief and excitement, leaning forward into the controls and rising up on his toes, hovering over the seat.

“I was aiming for his head!”

“Don’t tell me that!” Hux took a chance and brushed grit from his goggles, hands slamming back down on the controls. “Do you—ah!”

Their own speeder shuddered and swung wildly, the acrid scent of burning wire and plastifoam overpowering every other sense. Hux tensed as Ren was thrown from the vehicle, tucking his own head in as he fell and attempted to roll into the force of it.

The front of speeder hissed and flared as the thing skidded on its side in the sand.

“Someone else is firing on us!”

The pair of them ducked, Ren barely stopping another bolt fired by their pursuers from hitting them. He flicked his wrist, sending it back where it came from. An explosion much larger than what should have resulted from the recycled charge bloomed over the dunes.

Sand sprayed over them as another vehicle came to a wild, short stop. “You, there! State your business!”

Hux peered up carefully, melting with relief and elbowing Ren to get his attention. The white armor of a Stormtrooper was an odd kind of comfort.

Hux rose up on his knees, hands cautiously in the air. “Colonel Armitage Hux of the _Auriga._ I’m going to reach for my identification.”

The Trooper, red officer’s pauldron covered in dust, kept their blaster trained on Hux and Ren from their perch on the speeder.

Hux tugged his scarf and goggles away from his face and fished in the collar of his shirt to the pocket hidden there for his identification cards. His tags clattered against his chest when he pulled his hand out. The Trooper accepted and inspected the cards closely. They stared at Hux for a long moment before seeming to decide that he was telling the truth.

“I apologize, Colonel. We didn’t recognize you or your vehicle. And you _were_ attracting fire.” The Trooper held the cards back out to him, their grip on the blaster no less focused. “Who is this?”

Hux considered Ren out of the corner of his eye. As far as he knew, no one else had seen any of the Ren without their masks and robes and likely weren’t meant to. “An asset.”

“Is that something I might check with command? On the _Auriga_?”

“Do you honestly think we have time for that?” he snapped.

The Trooped peered over the dune. “Heat scan indicates no surviving organics. I would say we have time.”

As annoyed as Hux was, he had to commend the Trooper for keeping to protocol. Who was to say that Ren wasn’t someone who meant him or the _Auriga_ harm? The Trooper radioed back, their aim ever-steady. Within a moment or two the rest of the squad appeared, armed and ready, walking over the sand.

“My apologies again, Colonel.” They holstered their weapon and climbed down from the speeder. “Would you like an escort back to ground transport? The attack is through, we’re only disabling vehicles and loading prisoners.”

“Much appreciated.” Hux took the Trooper’s hand and allowed himself to be helped to his feet. “You are?”

“Second Lieutenant Phasma.”

Hux nodded. “Thank you.”

Ren brushed away attempts at assistance and adjusted his hood back over his head. Hux climbed up on the back of Phasma’s speeder and replaced his own protection from the wind and dust. “Wait!”

She paused with her hands over the controls.

“That crate, on the speeder. Bring it back to the transport. I want it secured out of sight.”

“Yes, sir.”

She shouted orders. Troopers scrambled to oblige. Ren settled into the driver’s seat of the nearest speeder, much to its owner’s chagrin--though they didn't seem motivated to protest. They took off toward the ground transport with a sudden lurch.

Back on the transport, Ren stepped close to Hux. “I told you nothing good would have ever come of that night. But you don’t listen. You never do.” He spoke through gritted teeth, eyes watching the Troopers who were moving Resistance prisoners aboard, their bright orange flight suits easy to pick out. “You’re going to get yourself killed one day.”

Hux turned so that they were nose to nose. “Then it’s a good thing you’re leaving. You won’t have to clean up the mess.”

Ren eyed the Troopers carefully, speaking in a hushed tone. “Why do you have to be like this? My leaving… it’s not… it’s not about _you_. I must leave for myself—to fulfill my potential, my destiny, and—“

“And I’m just a diversion. All of it was.”

Their argument was interrupted by the Second Lieutenant. “Sir, your cargo is secured.”

“Thank you.”

“There are seats for you and your asset at the front of the transport.”

“Thank you. We’ll make our way there shortly. I’m sure you and your squad would like to get off of this rock.”

She hesitated, glancing over one shoulder. “Sir, may I speak to you privately?”

Under normal circumstances Hux would have retorted that anything she needed to say to him could be said in front of Ren. But now?

“Certainly. Lead the way.”

Hux followed Phasma into the cargo area that his crate was secured in, not much more than a walk-in closet. The aroma of the cigarillos was overwhelming in the tight space.

“Sir, may I speak frankly?”

“Lieutenant.”

“Are we transporting illicit materials?”

“I dare say we are. But considering that I am your superior and that crate is sealed, I suggest you not question it.”

Phasma nodded. “May I continue frankly?”

“That would be more than acceptable. Might we step away from the cargo for the moment?” Hux was beginning to develop a keep ache right behind his eyes.

“Of course.” Phasma keyed a code in to lock the door to the hold and waited for a Trooper doing last minute checks to pass by.

“Sir, are you and… are you and your asset currently intoxicated?”

“Why ever do you ask?”

“Both of you exhibit several outward symptoms. And I would prefer to not have to recommend any of my men for reconditioning—nor myself, for that matter—by virtue of what we’ve witnessed here. Nor do I have any desire to be called to be deposed against one such as yourself for gross misuse of First Order resources.”

“You’re quite by the book, aren’t you, Lieutenant?”

“Sir.” Phasma paused and removed her helmet in a complete break with protocol. “I care only for the security of my squad and the success of my mission.”

“Then you needn’t worry. Simply deliver me back to my ship in one piece and you can forget any of this happened. As far as your mission report is concerned, my associate and I were involved in a ground operation and required assistance. No more, no less.”

She seemed to consider it for a moment. “Sir, may I ask one more question?”

“One.”

“Who is that man? Really? There is something… unsettling about him.”

Hux weighed his options. There was something about Second Lieutenant Phasma that drew him in. Whether it was in her unwaveringly perfect posture, her complete boldness, or some combination of the two, he couldn’t place it. He had the odd sense that he could trust her.

“Have you heard of the Knights of Ren, Lieutenant?”

Phasma’s brow creased. “They’re a story—Supreme Leader Snoke’s personal enforcers.”

“Something like that.”

“Do you mean to tell me, Colonel, that that man is a Knight of Ren?”

“Indeed.”

She shook her head. “They’re a myth, like the Jedi. Just a story. Nothing more.”

“They are very much not.” Phasma’s face flushed delicately. “There’s no need to be fearful or nervous.”

“I am not. Just… mildly confused.”

“I imagine so. Now, shall we leave the Jakku system behind?” Phasma nodded, wheels in her head still visibly turning. “Your men won’t have to deal with this cargo once we’re docked on the _Auriga_. I can handle it myself from there.”

“Sir.”

Ren almost immediately shut himself away in the comms room after assisting Hux in securing their most recent acquisition. Hux suspected he was contacting the rest of his ilk, arranging for transport. For his part, Hux retreated to his quarters to complete his report on their movements in the Jakku system.

The prisoners had proven quite weak, breaking with only the mildest of pressure applied. The Resistance had been in the system searching for, of all things, a child. It meant little to Hux. The battle had gone in the Order’s favor, no survivors were left to say whether or not they’d found the youngling of interest.

Hux tapped away at his datapad, cigarillo perched between his lips and back against the wall under his bunk. The cool durasteel tile felt luxurious against his outstretched legs after spending the better part of the cycle on that cursed desert wasteland.

_Squad led by Second Lieutenant Phasma provided aid and transport. Phasma should be commended for her swift action and frank attitude._

Hux paused for a moment, taking another drag and flicking ash into the plastoid dish beside him.

_Formal request for transfer of Second Lieutenant Phasma and her squad to the Auriga to follow._

Hux tossed his datapad up onto the bunk behind him and tilted his head back, resting the crown against the wall and blowing smoke into the air. It wasn’t one of their recent stock—he was positive he never would have gotten anything done if he’d dipped into that and Hux was determined to not simply sit in awe over the number of rivets in his ceiling. He listened to the ship-sounds around him. Engines thrummed, space hummed, subordinate officers and crew turned over restless in their quarters, pilots whooped in celebration in the barracks, technicians worked feverishly to make repairs, recycled atmosphere and reclaimed water rushed through the walls—Hux heard it all, felt it all, melted into it all—even that buzzing, nagging presence that refused to quiet when Kylo Ren inhabited the same space that Hux did.

Hux ground his teeth together and slapped and open palm against the floor for want of feeling something other than his own self-pity. He needed Ren just about as much as he needed a gaping hole in the side of his ship.

Ren leaving was the best thing that had happened to him in a long while, perhaps since he’d discovered his commander’s taste for Glitteryll and had stepped into a position of influence aboard the _Auriga_.

He’d be fine—better than fine—when he was rid of Kylo Ren.

“Hux.”

He’d barely heard the pneumatic _hiss_ of his door opening. Hux was never sure how Ren got into his quarters—whether Hux had told him the access code at some point, or Ren had plucked it from his mind or simply used those extra-special abilities of his to force the damned thing open.

“I thought you’d be well on your way by now.”

“I stayed to hear the interrogations. They proved relevant to Supreme Leader’s interests.”

“They haven’t proven relevant to mine.” Hux stiffened as Ren sank down beside him and plucked the cigarillo from his fingers. He breathed in deeply, holding the subtly fragrant smoke in his chest for a long moment before blowing it out.

“You haven’t the right to take such liberties, Ren.” Hux attempted to take his cig back, growling in frustration when Kylo held it just out of reach. He wouldn’t stoop to such childish games. Instead, he folded his arms and crossed his ankles and stared straight ahead. “Especially not when you’re leaving.”

“I’m not leaving right this moment.” He took another slow drag.

“You might as well be—give me _that!_ ” Hux reached out again leaning over Ren’s body to take the cigarillo from his hand. “You scruffy, pffasking— _mmph_!”

Ren continued to hold the cigarillo out of the way, massive hand cupping Hux’s skull and pulling him close. Ren nudged Hux’s lips with his own, a sticky sweet drag of soft skin and the brush of nose-on-nose, luring him into a Rashallo-scented kiss. Hux breathed into the kiss, his chest filling with the stuff and his head going all the more fuzzy for how he’d done it. Hux let his outreached hand relax, drawing it back and letting it rest on Ren’s chest. He melted into the easy familiarity of the warmth of Ren’s body and the pressure of his mouth against Hux’s.

“No!” Hux pulled away, dizzy. “You’re not allowed to play those games—you, you can’t. You can’t start something you’re not going to finish. You’re _leaving_ —leaving m—leaving.”

“Not until early next cycle.”

“Why not? Just go.”

Ren shrugged, nonchalant. “The engineers are checking over my shuttle. I’d rather not have a compressor burst in the middle of hyperspace.” He leaned in again, lips flewt wing-gentle and teeth stinger-sharp against the apple of Hux’s cheek. “Who said I wouldn’t finish what I started? That’s precisely what this is all about.”

Hux pushed Ren’s face away, making him hiss in displeasure when his forehead bumped a rivet in the durasteel wall. He got to his feet and paced away. “Fuck you, Kylo Ren.” The power of the cigarillo hit Hux all at once where before it had been a lazy burn, his heart-rate cranked up in agitation. He pinched the bridge of his nose, steadying himself. “Fuck you and your destiny and your Force-sensitive bumble-fluff and your kriffing…” Hux turned, out of steam, the thread of his thoughts gone. He watched Ren take a final drag, the end of the cigarillo burning bright and the light racing toward the end. He ground the butt into the plastoid dish already filled with ash and regarded Hux carefully from his spot on the floor. He picked up the steel cig case from where it lay abandoned, turning it over and over in his hands. “Fuck you.”

“You have so much… so much anger.” Ren unfolded himself from the floor, chucking the case with a clatter and taking fluid strides toward Hux. “So much anger and no place to put it.” The side of his mouth quirked into a smile and he reached out to brush a lock of sweat-salty hair away from Hux’s forehead. “The old Sith Lords would have loved you. Just like—“

“Don’t talk about your pfassking barvy grandfather.”

Ren snorted, amused. “So much anger.” Hux closed his eyes, breathing in smoke and sweat and desert grit. “Put it in me.”

Hux balled his hands into fists, trembling, and landed a sharp blow with the side of his hand against Ren’s chest, their lips still a hair’s width apart. “ _Kylo_.”

“I’ll use it for you. It’ll make me… _more_.”

“I don’t want you to be more, I want you to be _here_.”

“I am here.”

“For now.”

“So why are we still wasting time?”

Hux wrapped his arms around Ren’s neck and shoulders, smashing his face against Ren’s in a violent semblance of romance. He gasped, surprised and enraged when Ren hunched down and gripped his backside, fingers digging in to the lean meat there painfully. Ren pulled him up onto his toes, chasing Hux’s mouth with his own with the shift in height.

Hux hazarded a step back, searching blindly for footing until the backs of his thighs hit the rounded edge of the sad little durasteel table he sat at to work when the Brigadier was particularly indisposed and indignant, as was often the case and of Hux’s own doing. He reached back, scattering star charts and printed memos and schematics for weapons that existed only in his wildest dreams. Flimsiplast sheets flew into the air and floated down to the floor, scrunching and crumpling under their feet. Hux gripped the front of Ren’s tunic tightly, swerving them around. Kylo’s eyes widened in surprise as he tipped back, feet slipping, and fell hard against the table top. He arched up into Hux’s hands, tipping his head back over the edge of the table and baring his throat.

Hux watched as Ren’s pulse visibly pounded under his skin, the whiteness of it making his veins look more blue than they should—a hazard of life without sun. Hux sucked a bruise into the vulnerable flesh, feeling the tremble of Ren's heart under his tongue, and imagined sinking his teeth into it. Ren moaned out loud, rolling his body up, breaking the spell.

“ _Hux_.”

He wasn’t sure if he’d heard it in the open, recycled air or only in his head. Hux yanked at Ren’s belt, the saber becoming unclipped and falling to the floor with a clatter. Ren fisted his hands in the front of Hux’s regulation casuals, thighs tensing as Hux grappled with his leggings. Ever the pragmatic optimist where it concerned his cock, Ren wrenched his shoes off, making an easy job of it by dragging toe over heel repeatedly until they _thunked_ against the floor, narrowly missing Hux’s toes. Hux kicked them aside, ignoring the rumbling chuckle making the plane of Ren’s belly jump while he made sloppy work of riding him of the leggings.

Kylo’s eyes lowered into slits at first touch. Hux traced through the paths created by the twisting of hair and sprinkling of moles across Ren’s pelvis, soft first and then raking hard with blunt nails—thumbs digging into the furrow of muscle framing his hips and the crease between body and thigh, pressing down against the tantalizing swatch of skin meandering toward Ren’s hole.

“Hux—“

Hux stroked him once, roughly, pulling his skin up too far and letting go abruptly. “Fuck me, one last time—you can leave me with a cold bed later.”

“Hux—“

Ren’s eyes were too big, too sincere. His mouth too wet. Cheeks too flushed. Hux’s heart pounded a little harder and he convinced himself it was the Rashallo and nothing more—softening both of them into something they weren’t, a trick of the flow of chemical channels in the brain. Hux stroked him again, making him gasp. He leaned down, licking a kiss into Ren’s mouth. “Don’t _pfassking_ talk about it—just fuck me. I want...” Ren used his grip on Hux’s shirt as leverage, pulling himself up into the kiss. “—need—“ Ren’s legs were around him, hot and hard and long, muscles flexing against Hux’s hips as they pulled him in closer. “—you.”

Ren pulled away, wide-eyed and breathing heavily. His gaze tracked across the room to Hux’s bunk. An image, hesitant in a way that Hux only ever noticed when Ren wasn’t quite sober, of Kylo smacking his head against the top flitted through his head. Hux snorted, remembering the indignant squawk he’d let out when it happened; the contented casualty of an afternoon fuck when he should have been on duty clinging to him with the memory. Kylo’s lips twisted and settled into a wide smile, teeth hidden, as he held in his own laughter. Kylo shifted forward until his feet touched the floor, the _shwiiick_ of skin un-sticking from the durasteel table making them laugh all the more. He pressed forward, making Hux lean back for fear of falling, and dropped them unceremoniously to the floor.

Ren settled on his haunches, Hux’s legs spread and draped up across his thighs, and yanked his tunic up over his head. Hair a wild mess and chest heaving, Ren looked at Hux like he was planning to eat him alive. Hux yelped in surprise, his hips seized by clumsy hands and lifted into the air with the force of his casuals being tugged off. Safely back on the floor, shockingly cool against his backside, Hux shrugged awkwardly out of his own shirt. Bared and under Ren’s unnervingly evaluating gaze, a flush spread from his hairline to his chest. Ren’s smile softened, calloused fingers dancing along Hux’s midline and tracing squiggling paths through the trail of blondish hair around his navel.

“Get on with it.”

“Always so pushy!”

“If I weren’t you’d never figure out where to stick it,” he spat petulantly. The wave of Rashallo-haze began to fade. Ren responded with a rough finger grazing over Hux’s tight hole. “Oh! _Oh-_ pen me—Kylo.” Hux shivered, watching as saliva dropped almost daintily from Ren’s lips and slid down his perineum.

Ren glanced toward the bedside console, compartments flying open and hinges complaining, the varied contents of each compartment spilling and scattering over the floor. Ren made a frustrated face and held a hand out, a bottle of surgilube nicked from medbay rolling defiantly across the floor.

“Force abandoning you in your time of need?” Hux made an ugly expression of satisfaction, gulping in air at the slicked-up thumb pressing into him against his body’s protest.

Ren took his time, opening Hux with a meticulous air utterly foreign to him. Hux twisted his shoulders against the floor, reaching back for the edge of the cig case on the floor and missing by fractions. Ren looked up, his expression determined, and twisted his fingers cruelly inside of Hux, insistent pressure moving toward and away the most sensitive parts of him. The case inched away, pushed by something unseen. Hux huffed and tipped his hips up, sweat beading at his temples, ignoring the amused sound Ren made.

“You want that?” Hux nodded, tongue useless as Ren rubbed three fingers hard just inside, pushing against muscle in a way that made his spine light up with tingling. The case moved closer, bumping against Hux’s outstretched fingertips, just close enough to allow him to snatch it from the floor if he stretched.

Hux scrunched his face, the line between discomfort and pleasure skewing toward the former as Ren pressed his fingers in, first and last digits digging into the meat of his ass on the outside. His hands shook, fumbling with the latch of the case before it opened. He held a fresh cigarillo between his lips, flicking his thumb against the lighter until it sparked. Smoke drifted up in a lazy arc around Ren’s face as Hux blew it out. “Dammit, Ren—“

“Breathe in.”

“What?”

“Breathe in.”

Hux took a long drag on the cigarillo, eyes easing closed against the burn in his chest and muscles fluttering around nothing as Ren eased thick fingers out of his body. Hux opened his mouth to protest, insist that he was more than ready, that he had no intention of allowing Kylo to stay if all he intended to do was finger him blind—smoke poured out from between Hux’s lips in a rush as Kylo sheathed himself in Hux’s body, one smooth motion punctuated by the defiant smack of skin-on-skin.

“ _Fuck_.”

Hux’s thoughts began to grow hazy once more, the feeling a pleasant blend of strung-out lethargy from the Rashallo and Ren’s attentions. Ren leaned into him, making Hux’s body curl, rubbing calloused palms over his stomach and chest—smooth as velvet and rough as sandingflimsi all at once, leaving shining surgilube remnants in trails over Hux’s torso. Twin snakes of smoke floated slowly away from Hux’s nose, breathing out slowly as blunt fingers rolled and rubbed at his nipples making them tight and erect in contrast to the looseness of his body, Ren pumping away in alternatingly abrupt and slow strokes all the while. Hux exhaled in a sharp huff, cigarillo dangling precariously between two fingers away from his body, as Ren draped himself forward and pushed in to the hilt; the coarse hair on his belly waking every nerve in Hux’s hard cock as it dragged over tight, heated skin. He pulsed, twitched--quick drops of thin, clear fluid pooling over his own navel.

Ren turned his head, lips parted, and Hux brought his hand closer, cigarillo smoldering between his fingers. Ren’s lips brushed against Hux’s palm, pursed to draw in a short burst from the cig. He leaned in, the subtle bite of it on his lips and clinging to his teeth like a sweet, smooth glaze. The smoke filtered between them, passed back and forth as it dissipated on humid breaths, Ren’s hips all the while working in short, hard strokes. He pressed his lips under Hux’s chin, tongue leaving a wet streak behind his ear. “We’re not getting anywhere, are we?”

Hux huffed, laugh cut short by another stroke into his body and his hips curling forward with it. He dragged a foot up against Ren’s backside, toes gliding up over the notches in his lower spine. “Not in the least.”

Ren sat up, Hux shifting to get comfortable once more, his legs tingling with newly uninhibited blood flow. Ren looked around for a moment, his eyes shining and soft, his cheeks flushed, and picked up the surgilube once again. Spreading it around on his fingers, he reached behind himself and sighed.

“Have you forgotten someone?”

Ren smiled crookedly, eyes fluttering closed for a moment. He eased forward, not quite folding Hux in half again and taking Hux's hand, guiding it up and over his hip and pressing Hux’s fingers into his body beside his own.

“ _Fuck.”_

Ren removed his own hand and insinuated it between them, slicking Hux’s cock with surgilube in lazy stokes and running his thumb around the sensitive glans. Hux shuddered, ready to explode out of his corporeal form, tangled up in Ren and with Ren in him.

“Don’t come, not yet.”

“If you keep— _ahh!_ ” Ren squeezed, tight, fingers a firm ring around the base of his shaft.

“Wait for me.”

“I don’t know what— _hnng_ —“ Hux’s body rebelled against the loss of Ren, hole clenching in protest and legs refusing to relax on either side of him.

Ren disentangled himself, shuffling forward on his knees with his cock bobbing between them, hard and straining. He took Hux in hand, twisting his torso in a show of rolling muscle and shifting patterns of beauty spots and scar-tissue to better see his task, and lowered himself until over-heated skin met skin. He took quick breaths, belly jumping with it and chest heaving, just sitting there for seconds that stretched on.

Hux smacked his thigh. “Expect me to do all the work? While I’m trapped down here under a mountain of mystic oaf?”

Ren cracked one eye open, hands falling to his own cock but not doing anything more. “Pushy.” He put a hand out, fingers not as coated in medical-grade slick as the other, “Give me that.”

Hux handed over the cigarillo, half burned, and watched as Kylo smoked lazily. The plastoid dish skittered closer of its own accord just in time for him to ash the cig. He took another drag, holding the smoke in his chest as he offered it back to Hux, perched elegantly between his index and middle fingers, and held it as Hux pulled a breath through it before reclaiming it.

Ren took on a lethargic haze, stretching his body up toward the ceiling like a spukamas turned humanoid, each vertebra shifting before the next in a motion that flowed through to his extended fingertips before he dropped his hands. His head lolled to the side, teeth bright white under the sterile lighting of the ship as he and his shoulders shook with silent laughter. His thighs tensed and he lifted himself by fractions, pelvis tipping forward and back—forward and back—forward and back…

Hux savored the last of the cigarillo, awkwardly putting out the butt in the plastoid dish and pushing it away. He reached out, tentatively tracing the thick cord of muscle running from knee to hip in either of the strong legs around his hips.

Ren was leaving.

Leaving the _Auriga._

Leaving the system, likely.

Leaving Hux.

Hux’s eyes roamed, studying the bits and pieces of Ren that suddenly seemed too important to forget. Had he always had that smattering of beauty marks over his left hip? Did his skin always flush pink like that around the bruises and contusions he earned in the course of a scuffle? Was the brown of his eyes always that bright or was it a trick of the light and the wideness of his pupils in the Rashallo haze? Hux’s fingers fell into the lightening-strike patterns of the stretches in Ren’s skin—weak spots that shone like silver on ivory, dropped stitches in a knitted blanket pulled tight over strong muscle that rippled with each pump of his hips.

Ren covered Hux’s hands with his own, warm and tacky with drying surgilube, skin soft and rough simultaneously. Hux bit hard on his bottom lip, blinking rapidly to clear the salty film over his eyes. He shifted, planting his feet on the floor to drive his hips up fast. Ren’s face opened, mouth an _O_ of surprise and eyes sparkling with amusement and pleasure. Hux tracked the path of a bead of sweat down Ren's throat, concentrating on the planes of his chest as it dropped and not letting the thing of it overwhelm him.

“Hux.”

“ _Mm_.”

“My Starkiller.”

Ren held himself, arms wrapped around his torso like he might fall apart, Hux pistoning his hips upward counter to Ren's movements. A dark blush formed in the shells of his ears—sticking out through sweat-damp strands of hair—and flowing down through his cheeks and throat an shoulders, settling in his taut belly and making his beauty spots stand out like cool islands in a molten sea.

It was the cigarillo.

Hux wasn’t this sentimental.

He gasped, taken back by the warmth that flooded through his body and wrapped around his limbs like the gentle, probing tentacles of some astral cephalopod. The warmth buzzed through him, lighting up muscle and nerve and the very marrow of him—Ren tangling them further together, intentional or not, in some strange writhing cloud of the Force. It brushed against his lines, his curves, his vulnerable and intimate spaces. It danced across Hux's lips like an invisible feather and landed in drops across his chest that seemed to burn as Ren reached his climax and then continued to undulate his body, muscles hot and tight and slick, until Hux came as well with a dry sob inside of him.

Hux eased his legs flat again, hissing at the over-sensitivity as Ren clambered off of him and dropped heavy onto his side. Thick fingers pushed through the spend splattered on his chest, Kylo sucking in a rosy bottom lip and laughing breathlessly from behind a tangle of dark hair as he gently pushed them between Hux’s lips.

Hux grimaced against the mess of them, rolling into Ren’s embrace in spite of it. He smiled wickedly to himself, a sharp nip against the curve of Ren’s chin drawing out a yelp.

“Kylo.”

“Don’t start again. Just have this.”

“No,” Hux’s face burned with embarrassment. He was sure Ren could feel the heat of it. “Why—why do you call me that?” He gasped, Ren’s fingers carelessly breaching him as they crept over his body—as if perhaps he was memorizing Hux as well.

“Call you what?”

“You know.”

“Starkiller.” Hux made a sound of affirmation, relaxing into the lazy stimulation and hitching his knees higher around Kylo’s hips. “Because I’ve seen it. Seen you—brilliant and glowing, bathed in the light of entire systems crumbling and turning to ash—those that remain trembling and begging to lick your boots.” Hux shivered, Ren's fingers probing deeper. “My Starkiller.” He tensed, cock pulsing weakly, the energy to come a second time just not there.

They laid on the floor, cold durasteel tile warmed by the heat of their bodies, for long minutes—kissing and touching, rubbing shamelessly against each other as the Rashallo waned and pupils slowly contracted against the light of the room.

Ren offered a hand up and Hux took it gratefully, legs wobbly as he plunked down on the edge of his bunk. He settled in, body heavy with lethargy he wasn’t entirely sure was his own or entirely natural, and let the sound of the sonic shower lull him to sleep.

He woke to the sound of his comm chirping. Too sleep-weighted to pull himself out of bed and across the room to where it was stashed in his uniform pocket, he fished his datapad from beneath the lump of bedding behind his head and swiped his fingers across the screen aimlessly until the call transferred and connected.

“What?”

“Colonel Hux.”

“ _Yes_.”

“Kylo Ren has requested that we alert command as to his departure, the asset that you acquired on Jakku is being transported with him to Supreme Leader’s coordinates—if I understand correctly. We were all quite confused at the entire affair, sir.”

“And why are you alerting _me_ , Mitaka?”

“Because the man who is _actually_ supposed to be commanding this ship is otherwise indisposed, sir.”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s high, sir. Again.”

“Well who the _fuck_ keeps giving him that Glitteryll? We’ve got a pfassking galactic war to fight!”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Find out!”

“Yes, sir.”

Hux was breathing hard, nostrils flared—furious, but not enough to blow his own operation. Comm link disconnected, he looked around the room. His stomach dropped, heart throbbing with his heightened mood. Angry, embarrassed tears burned his eyes and rolled over his cheeks at the lack of mess in the room—bedside console righted, his casuals hung smoothly over the back of the single plastoid chair at the table, stacks of flimsy and star charts back in their proper place almost as if they’d never been heedlessly flung to the side.

How Ren had ever fit comfortably on top of a table that barely sat one would never reconcile in Hux’s mind.

And it would never have to.

With the lack of evidence, it was as if it had never happened. He half expected the crate they’d brought aboard to be missing, not having existed in the first place.

Kylo was gone and anything that had passed between them was just an enjoyable mistake—a toe off the path that could be easily corrected.

The datapad smashed in a satisfying shower of transparisteel and datachip debris against the opposite wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hux is dealing heavily in space narcotics and Ren is along for the ride. They do smoke cigarillos whilst having sex and Ren is high while he's performing a sex act on Hux. All illicit substances mentioned within the text are fictional and information about each can be found by searching for them on the Wookieepedia.


End file.
